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| Wendell Minnick |
Presidents Obama's refusal to permit the sales of F-16's and possibly other arms deals to Taiwan, has caused a renewed focus of the island on indigenous weapons,
defense specialist Wendell Minnick writes in Defense News. R&D focuses on some rather exotic systems.
Wendell Minnick:
The military-run Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) and the state-run Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC) are developing most of the new weapons.
New programs include an anti-radiation UAV, a graphite bomb, an electromagnetic pulse weapon, a hypersonic vehicle testing capability, a long-range UAV, ship stealth technology and a catamaran-hulled ship, said a Taiwan defense analyst.
Over the past several years, the U.S. has denied Taiwan's request for air-launched weapons considered offensive in nature, including the Joint Direct Attack Munition and AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile.
According to KMT legislator Lin Yu-fang in a Sept. 6 news release, Taiwan is going forward with the production of the air-launched Wan Chien (Ten Thousand Swords) cluster bomb. Production is to begin around 2014 to 2018, he said.
More in Defense News.
Wendell Minnick is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.
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